Europe’s top electronics retailer installs IoT lighting

MediaMarkt said its customers were finding it an ‘inspiring, fun and convenient shopping experience’.

EUROPE'S largest chain of consumer electronics stores, MediaMarkt, has installed connected lighting to market to customers via their mobile phones.

At the trial store in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, shoppers receive marketing offers and find products using the retailer’s smart phone app.

By triangulating the unique codes from the nearby light fittings, the location of a customer can be determined to an accuracy of just 30 centimetres.

Through visible light technology, each luminaire sends a unique identification code to the customer’s smartphone via the phone’s forward-facing camera. The code is embedded by modulating the visible light at extremely high frequencies and is invisible to the naked eye.

By using triangulation of these codes from the nearby light fittings, the location can be determined accurately. The location is then compared by the app to a map of the store in the cloud to determine the exact position of the customers, to an accuracy of just 30 centimetres.

Depending on their position in the store, customers then receive real-time location-related information about specific products and attractive offers in the StoreGuide app.

The app also allows users to put in a list of items that they need, and it will guide them to each item on the list.

No personal data is collected by the lighting system so no privacy issues are raised by the indoor positioning technology.

‘MediaMarkt likes to be at the forefront when it comes to innovation in retail,’ said Martin Wild, chief digital officer of the MediaMarktSaturn retail group. The company said customers were finding it an ‘inspiring, fun and convenient shopping experience’.

The retailer's StoreGuide app was developed by German software developer novomind; the indoor positioning technology in the LED lighting was supplied by Philips Lighting and the mapping technology came from US tech start-up Aisle411.

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